Why aren't we sharing?

Jessica works as an Activities Director, aka, Lifestyles/Engagement/Expressions Director. Why so many names for Activities? Anyway, Jessica is overwhelmed, swamped, busy, wearing 5 hats, etc. etc. The one thing everyone can agree on is that Jessica has no time. 

As part of a recent case study, I was able to track the time and tasks of not only Jessica, but many Activities Directors across many companies. Here is what I learned:

• They all have different titles but do pretty much the same job.
• They all curate and organize programs and events for their community 
• They spend a lot of time creating and printing flyers/calendars/etc.
• They spend a lot of time handing out papers or posting them around the community.
• Despite all of the above, people complain that they don’t know what’s going on, or didn’t know about a change, etc. etc. etc.

I started asking questions. “Where do you go to get new ideas, activity outlines, printouts? What is your library of stuff so you don’t have to do so much ‘creation’ work?” Some have resources, like paid vendors, that offer programs and materials. Some have a binder or digital folder with previous materials. Most have tools like Canva or Word, and they make it work for themselves on their own.

The bottom line, they spend a good deal of time creating and printing.

I’ve been associated with United We Age for a while, a non-profit out of Florida, on how I might be able to help with their mission. They are simply trying to make the aging process better for everyone - aging people and the ones who care for them. I think we’ve been able to put something together that can have a real benefit to many people who are making the aging process better, specifically all of the Lifestyle/Activities Directors out there.

We’ve created a tool called “Prntyr” (every tech tool has to be spelled wrong) - and the idea is, no surprise, to help people with all their “printing stuff.”

Here is how:

• Make it free
• Make it easy to share things with each other
• Make it easy to find things
• Through United We Age, gather content from sources around the country and add it for everyone’s use.

The idea is to go to Prntyr.com, find materials you need, edit them however you want, and use them. And if you’re feeling generous, share things back. It’s free content and outlines created by and used by peers. We call the materials “Shares,” and we are hoping more and more people can share things so everyone gets more time back and shares more ideas.